Requiescat in Pacis: Wendy Wasserstein

Wendy Wasserstein, the feminist playwright of such works as "The Heidi Chronicles" and "The Sisters Rosensweig" died today, a victim of lymphoma. The New York Times printed a wonderful feature by Charles Isherwood on Wasserstein and her response to the changes in popular culture.

Check out the article:

Isherwood, Charles. "Wendy Wasserstein, Chronicler of Women's Identity Crises, Dies,"
The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/theater/30cnd-wasserstein.htmlpagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=f9a0f3e17623e53b&hp&ex=1138683600&partner=homepage

Nicole Kidman Named UN Ambassador

Nicole Kidman is now an ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, known as Unifem. Kidman hopes to use the role to focus on violence against women.

I wasn't always a huge fan of Nicole Kidman's (this is actually a bit of an understatement), but I have a newfound respect for her:

The actress says she hopes her name and face will cause people who wouldn't normally be interested in women's rights to "leave the TV running or read the papers..."

Kidman said it was her own "passion toward helping women" that motivated her to first call the United Nations and said she hoped it would "result in lifelong commitment."

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/01/26/kidman.un/index.html

Women Gaining in Business

Recently released census data reveals that the number of women-owned businesses “grew at twice the national rate for all private businesses from 1997-2001.”

As is often the case, the actual changes taking place have happened faster than society’s acceptance of these changes:

Margaret Smith, who owns a large kitchen and home accessory store in Los Gatos, Calif., has 25 employees and sales in the millions. She has owned the store, called Domus, for 10 years, yet she still gets mistaken for the owner's wife.

She took her husband on a trip to a trade show last year and several exhibitors ignored her and tried to do business with her husband. "Of course, he knows nothing about my business, but they had a very hard time accepting that," Smith said.

Nevertheless, it has been said that no army can stop an idea whose time has come. And the time has certainly come for women to have a greater share in the business world.

Source:
LA Times.com, “Women-Owned Business Growing in the U.S.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/ats-ap_top18jan26,1,6298709.story?coll=la-ap-topnews-headlines

Checking Eggs

I cannot decide if this is a good thing or not: A doctor in the U.K. developed a test that will allow a woman to predict, based on the number of eggs present in her ovaries, how many years she has left to conceive.

Pro: A large number of women who put off having families in order to pursue their careers have difficulty becoming pregnant once they have established themselves in the workplace.

Con: If this test is not entirely accurate, it could give women either a false sense of security or a false sense of urgency about having a family.

Nevertheless, it certainly is interesting and will surely be popping up in the U.S. soon.

Source:
Daily Mail, “Fertility Test Can Delay Motherhood.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/womenfamily.html?in_article_id=375084&in_page_id=1799

Semper Fi?

Male infidelity is often justified through biology. I cannot count the number of times I have heard men defend their “wandering eyes” or infidelity (or heard women explain away their male partners' infidelity) by claiming that “it’s just not natural” for men to be monogamous. At our core, the argument goes, we are animals and subject to the whim of our biological urges. Thus, while women naturally desire monogamy to facilitate raising children, men naturally want to be with as many women as they can in order to produce numerous heirs and perpetuate the species. The men who take up this argument generally allege that it is only their deep love of their girlfriends or wives that keep them faithful (and they seem to think they deserve a lot of credit if they remain faithful).

But a new research study suggests that it just may be the men who should be thanking their lucky stars:

The new study, reported in the January issue of Hormones and Behavior, suggests that during ovulation, when women with a higher level of testosterone are ready to conceive, nature may encourage them to look for what they consider to be the best possible gene pool.

Apparently, women who perceive their male partners as being less attractive are more likely to let their eyes wander when they ovulate. The study explains that

‘The mating market is driven by supply and demand, and therefore not all women will attract long-term mates offering good genes.’ Women innately deduce that a man they find sexy has better genes to pass on to a baby, they say.

‘Ancestrally, these women may have benefited from a strategy in which they secured investment from a long-term mate and obtained genetic benefits from extra-pair partners.’

But women are just as accountable for their infidelity as men. Study co-author Steven Gangestad says:

[Women] aren't robots following genetic instruction. You have psychology, biology that is some product of selection. But relationships are mixtures of loving aspects and conflicts, and this is a part of conflict. Infidelity itself is a choice.

Source:
China View, “Ovulating Women More Likely to Stray: Study.”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-01/11/content_4037178.htm

Women Happier When Men Do Their Part

A study recently released in the U.K. reveals that women are happier who both work and have a husband who helps out with the household chores. I find the fact that this study was even conducted a bit surprising; honestly, hasn’t the goal of feminism always been equality with men? Meaning not only that women and men should participate equally in the workplace, but also in the homes that they purposefully share?

'Our findings contradict claims that women would be happier if they went back to being traditional housewives. The recipe for personal happiness, satisfaction with the family and lower stress at home seems to be a combination of liberal attitudes to work outside the home and a fairer division of household chores,' the Telegraph quoted [the head researcher], as saying.

I recognize that equality, true equality, for women has yet to be achieved, and this study articulates the problem many women who entered the work force in droves during the 1970s and 80s faced: while women’s expectations for themselves changed, the expectations and pressures of culture had not. But it is encouraging to know that men are starting to accept some responsbility for managing the homes and families they help to create.

Source:
WebIndia123, “For Women, Happiness Is a Job and a Man to Do the Washing.”
http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=227282&cat=World

Mukhtar Mai

So much has been written about Mukhtar Mai that I would be remiss if I did not write a little bit about her on this site. Mukhtar Mai was a young woman living in Pakistan with her family when her 14-year-old brother was seen with a girl from another tribe. After the other tribe learned this, they demanded first that the boy marry the girl and that Mukhtar marry the girl's brother. The brothers of the girl rejected the marriage proposals and instead insisted that Mukhtar should be punished by gang-rape; "They would 'make zina' with her and this would equalize the situation." (1)

The tribal council, called a panchiyat, had Mukhtar come to them to ask their forgiveness.

When she arrived at the panchiyat, [Mukhtar] was physically apprehended by [a man] who was armed with a gun. She was taken into a room ... and raped by Abdul Khaliq, his brother Allah Ditta, Fayaz Hussain, and Ghulam Farid. Witnesses say she cried out the entire time. When they were finished, the four men threw her out into the road. She was naked; her father threw his shawl over her. This was witnessed by her father as well as two other men... (1)

However, rather than going quietly into that good night, Mukhtar and her family went public with her story, hoping to bring the rapists to justice and to "raise awareness about culturally sanctioned violence against women."

Mukhtar Mai says that she contemplated suicide at this point. It is expected that a woman who has been raped will commit suicide and will be too ashamed at what has happened to file a complaint with the police.... [However,] that Friday, the imam's [sermon] centered upon "a great injustice" which had been committed against a woman in the village, and he alerted a local newspaper reporter. He also encouraged Mukhtar to file a complaint with the police...

In the year in 2004, about 150 women were punished by karo kiri (rape), under panchiyat an informal village/tribal system of law... (1)

And Yet She Is Harrassed...
Mukhtar received a great deal of harassment from Pakistanis who felt that she was dishonoring her country by airing their dirty laundry. The president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, "dismissed [Mukhtar's] claims, telling The Washington Post that women in Pakistan invite rape in order to get a visa to the West and make money," referring to the numerous invitations Mukhtar had received from western organizations to come and tell her story. (2) This certainly echoes the cultural refusal in Pakistan to acknowledge rape that I wrote about in this earlier post.

Though Mukhtar Mai persued the matter, it was by no means an easy road. After convictions, acquittals, and re-arrests, the matter is still not decided:

A court in 2002 sentenced six men to death and acquitted eight others in Mai’s rape. Last March, the Lahore High Court acquitted five of the men and reduced the death sentence of the sixth to life in prison. After an emotional appeal by Mai, the acquittals were overturned in June and 13 men originally held in the case were re-arrested. They remain in jail while Pakistan’s Supreme Court considers the matter. (3)

Now, Mukhtar waits in limbo, fearing for her life:

Mukhtar Mai is currently tremendous danger from people who want to restore the "honor" of the [tribe who committed the rape]. They may kill her, rape her and find some other gruesome way to punish her for speaking out. There are some in Pakistan, including Senator Kulsoom Parveen and President Pervez Musharraf, who feel that the international attention to this case has given a bad name to ... Pakistan, and that Mukhtar Mai should stay quiet. Senator Parveen, who is a woman, has publicly implied that Mukhtar Mai and another woman whose rape case became notorious earlier this year, have weak 'iman (faith). She also said that Mukhtar Mai should be barred by the state from travelling outside of Pakistan to tell her story.

Others, more extreme, believe that Mukhtar Mai should be silenced by force. While Mukhtar Mai does have many supporters, including those in the Parliament, she currently lives under constant police protection. Brothers and sisters, the Qur'an and Sunnah is the rock that she is standing on and she has made it very clear to journalists that she fights from an Islamic standpoint, not against it. (1)

A Pakistani Writer Speaks Back
Khaled Ahmed, writing in the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, addressed the hatred many in Pakistan felt toward Mukhtar Mai for publicizing her story:

The expatriate community is holding on to Islam to safeguard its cultural identity in the face of Americanisation. Mukhtar Mai was saved from passing into oblivion by the foreign media and the human rights activists inside and outside Pakistan. In the eyes of many, this violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The question is: is Pakistan’s sovereignty maintained by violating the honour of a helpless woman? (4)

Ahmed's answer is a resounding "no." In response to people who claim it was unnecessary for Mukhtar to go to the United States because, here too women are raped, Ahmed writes:

This is typical of the opinion in Urdu. In English, by and large, there is an acceptance of the injustice of laws towards Pakistani women. Urdu is the language of our nationalism; English is the language of our reform.

There is a myth prevalent in Urdu that our women enjoy more honour than the women of America. This kind of approach brushes aside the long-standing plaint of the women in Pakistan about religion-derived laws that punish them without any proof of guilt.

The rape law in Pakistan is the most dishonourable thing one could do to a woman. But somehow we equate it with honour. Honour lies in getting raped and then not complaining about it. This happens all the time. Pakistan is answerable to the UN for violations of human rights under law. (4)

Sources:
(1) International Muslma Rights Association, "Appeal for Mukhtar Mai: What You Can Do to Help Her and Raise Awareness."
http://www.muslimarights.org/mukhtarmaiappeal.htm

(2) "Pakistani Heroine Visits U.S." Bust, February/March 2006, p. 16.

(3) Daily Times, "French FM praises Mukhtar Mai for breaking silence."
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C01%5C17%5Cstory_17-1-2006_pg7_48

(4) Daily Times, "Why Do We Hate Mukhtar Mai?"
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005%5C12%5C23%5Cstory_23-12-2005_pg3_2

How's This for Inspiration?

In college, my flatmate Alison, a history major, hung the classic War World II poster of Rosie the Riveter in her room. I fell in love with the posters of that era and the can-do spirit they emanated for women of that time.

I came across this poster while researching some women's history topics through the Library of Congress, and it carries that same--dare I say it--feminist attitude of the Rosie the Riveter poster. Apparently the "Good Going Girls" poster was created to encourage women to continue working hard on building well-made planes for men in the military to fly during World War II.

There are a lot of posters from WWII with pro-woman attitudes, reflecting the fact that WWII was a major factor in women breaking out of the confines of the house (the "cult of domesticity") and into the working world that used to be inhabited only by men.

I think it provides encouragement for women even today, given the reality that there are still many "glass ceilings" for women to break through in the United States and across the globe. But--as the young women in India have bravely demonstrated--the ceilings can be broken through.

Corporate Ladder? In Some Companies, Still a Scaffold

While a woman in the U.K. presents a sexual discrimination suit against a bank in Britain, another suit has been commenced against a bank in the U.S. The women in the latter suit, who worked for the Wall Street bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities LLC, cite an old boys’ club atmosphere (including the cliched “strip club” trips with clients that serve to bond male employees while alienating female employees) and job growth stunted by maternity leave as two great stumbling blocks on their journeys up the corporate ladder.

Source:
ABC News, “Six Women Sue Wall Street Bank, Alleging Sex Discrimination.”
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=1517249

Football Match Brings (Swedish) Women One Step Forward

After initially banning women from attending, Saudi authorities are now allowing female Swedish football fans into the stadium in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to watch the football match between Saudi Arabia and Sweden tonight. Women are normally forbidden to watch the games because Saudi Arabia “follows a strict interpretation of Islam,” which prohibits women from mixing with men in public places. While this step is rather small (no Saudi women are allowed to attend and the Swedish women have to sit in a separate section), it is still a step.

Sources:
Aljazeera.net, “Female Footie Fans Win Saudi Concession.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C083A07B-4A2C-47F8-A7A2-B233A030D165.htm

BBC News Online, “Saudis Allow Women to Watch Match.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4623572.stm

Female Foeticide in India

Technology, if not making things better, has certainly made things easier. Female infanticide used to be achieved in heavily male-centric places like India and China after the birth of the child by the rather simple means of starving female infants or leaving them to die in the wilderness. But today, thanks to ultrasounds, mothers and fathers no longer have to go through the agonizing 9-month wait to discover whether or not they will be blessed with a boy or “cursed” with a girl. The problem, according to Gendercide.org, is a significant concern in the Third World:

The phenomenon of female infanticide is as old as many cultures, and has likely accounted for millions of gender-selective deaths throughout history. It remains a critical concern in a number of "Third World" countries today, notably the two most populous countries on earth, China and India. In all cases, specifically female infanticide reflects the low status accorded to women in most parts of the world; it is arguably the most brutal and destructive manifestation of the anti-female bias that pervades "patriarchal" societies. (1)

A recent study performed in India indicates that now that pre-natal screening can reveal the sex of the baby before it is born, parents are aborting female fetuses at an alarming rate: approximately 500,000 female infants are aborted each year, equaling some 10 million female fetuses over two decades.

[Researchers] discovered that the 'girl deficit' was more common among educated families, especially in homes where the first-born was a girl. The desire to have a male heir was found to drive families to sex-determination tests and termination of pregnancy if the foetus was female. Highlighting the continuing trend of falling female birth rate in India, the study said: 'Prenatal sex determination followed by selective abortion of female foetuses is the most plausible explanation for the low sex ratio at birth in India.' (2)

The Indian Medical Association (IMA), however, claims that the number of 10 million female fetuses ending in abortion is an exaggeration. The IMA says that the usage of pre-natal screening to determine the sex of fetuses waned after the Supreme Court in India made strict rulings against the practice.

One of the researchers responsible for the study said that

the data was collected in the course of their more than five years long research from atleast one million households, both in urban and rural areas and people of all classes were covered. The census data also came handy to them to arrive at conclusions about the missing girls. (3)

Whether the number of female fetuses aborted is 12 million, 10 million, or 8 million is of little consequence to the people who see the effects of female foeticide in their villages. A writer in India explains:

Tired of losing out daughters even when they are in the womb and seeing entire villages full of just men, residents of Naura — a small village near Banga in Punjab — have decided they must do something before it is too late.

Two days ago when news came that an unborn girl had been murdered in her mother Manjit Kaur's womb, hundreds of villagers wearing white assembled outside Manjit Kaur's house and took out a "funeral procession". ...

For the uninitiated, for long Punjab has seen the killing of its unborn girls with alarming persistence and cruelty. At present it has a sex ratio of 874 girls to 1,000 boys against the national average of 933.

It continues to lose one-fourth of all girls who would be born. In certain areas, the problem is so acute that a Bill Gates Foundation-sponsored study reported a ratio of just 628 in Khamano block of Fatehgarh Sahib. (4)

Sources:
(1) Gendercide.org, “Case Study: Female Infanticide.”
http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html

(2) One World South Asia, “Study Estimates Female Foeticide at Ten Million in India.”
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/125571/1/1893

(3) DNA India, “Female Foeticide Report Is Incorrect, Says IMA.”
http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1007036

(4) Times of India.com, "Punjab Village Cries for Unborn Girls."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1377138,curpg-1.cms

Let's Hear It for the Girls!

When I was 12 years old, I could barely draw myself away from Saved By the Bell reruns long enough to acknowledge problems of greater import than the classic “mean girls” at school. Yet today I read about two young girls, Chanigalla Susheela and Minati Gagaral (12 and 14 years old, respectively), who not only faced a problem so much bigger than what I could imagine dealing with at that age, but reacted to it with courage impressive for even a 25-year-old.

These two young women received the National Bravery Award in India for protesting child marriage:

Showing remarkable courage, Susheela, who was married to a 22-year-old man against her wishes [when she was 12 years old] and refused the right to continue schooling, demanded a formal annulment of the marriage under the supervision of the panchayat.

She approached volunteers from the MV Foundation and the village panchayat convincing them to support her.

A meeting was convened on June 12, 2005 and the marriage was annulled under the supervision of the panchayat.

Susheela's courage inspired 30 other girls in the area to dissolve similar marriages.

Because of this girl’s one act of courage, 30 other girls stood up for themselves as well. And it doesn’t end there:

Similar is the tale of [14-year-old] Minati who was pressurised by a 50-year-old man to marry him.

As per Adivasi custom, her elder brother did not allow her to stay in her parents house thereafter and even threatened to kill her.

However, diminutive Minati refused to accept the aged man as her husband and stood up against the Adivasi custom and child marriage.

She left the house and stayed in the forest for two to three days without food. Then, with the help of locals, she reported the matter to police....

When asked what she planned to do with the prize money she would get along with the bravery award, Minati said "I will study."

Source:
Sify News.com, “Tribal Girls Stand Up Against Child Marriage.”
http://sify.com/news/othernews/fullstory.php?id=14122890

Why I Support the Ban

For those of you who may be unaware of what women are experiencing in Europe if they stray from their Muslim roots, I am posting a link to an article printed in The New York Times Magazine in December 2005 entitled “The New Berlin Wall.” The article is, in part, about a young Muslim woman named Hatun Surucu who lived in Germany and was shot and killed by her brothers. Her great crime? Her brothers felt she had become “too German” (abandoning her head scarf and the marriage that she was forced into when she was 13, among other things).

Though I wrestle with the free speech and freedom of religion violations the Dutch could be making by banning the veil, I hope the ban will be one step in gaining Muslim women, at least in Europe, the rights to do the simple things that I do everyday. And when I weigh a woman’s ability to wear a veil--a veil she is often forced by her culture and family to wear--against a woman’s right not to be forced into marriage at the age of 13, I have a hard time mustering indignation about violations of free speech or religion. (As we are asked in law classes: Is this the kind of speech that we want to protect? And, is it a violation of freedom of expression if the women in question are being forced to wear/express it?) I only wish that what happened to Hatun Surucu was an anomaly; unfortunately, her story is not as rare as I would like to believe.

Here is just an excerpt of the article telling Hatun’s story:

Hatun Surucu grew up in Berlin as the daughter of Turkish Kurds. When she finished eighth grade, her parents took her out of school. Shortly after that she was taken to Turkey and married to a cousin. Later she separated from her husband and returned to Berlin, pregnant. At age 17 she gave birth to a son, Can. She moved into a women's shelter and completed the work for her middle-school certificate. By 2004 she had finished a vocational-training program to become an electrician. The young mother who had escaped her family's constraints began to enjoy herself. She put on makeup, wore her hair unbound, went dancing and adorned herself with rings, necklaces and bracelets. Then, just days before she was to receive her journeyman's diploma, her life was cut short.

Evidently, in the eyes of her brothers, Hatun Surucu's capital crime was that, living in Germany, she had begun living like a German. In a statement to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, one brother noted that she had stopped wearing her head scarf, that she refused to go back to her family and that she had declared her intent to "seek out her own circle of friends." It's still unclear whether anyone ordered her murdered. Often in such cases it is the father of the family who decides about the punishment. But Seyran Ates has seen in her legal practice cases in which the mother has a leading role: mothers who were forced to marry forcing the same fate on their daughters. Necla Kelek, a Turkish-German author who has interviewed dozens of women on this topic, explained, "The mothers are looking for solidarity by demanding that their daughters submit to the same hardship and suffering." By disobeying them, the daughter calls into question her mother's life - her silent submission to the ritual of forced marriage. Meanwhile, the two elder brothers have papered their cell with pictures of their dead sister.

Source:
Schneider, Peter. “The New Berlin Wall.” The New York Times Magazine. December 4, 2005, pp. 66-71.

Strides

The good news? Strides are definitely being made by women as they claim leadership positions around the world:

• Chile elects its first female president, Michele Bachelet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4618954.stm

• Africa’s first elected female leader, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4615764.stm

• In November, Angela Merkel was elected Germany’s first female chancellor: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4458430.stm

And the Dutch, who, in misguided attempts at multiculturalism have allowed Muslims to subject themselves to Shari’a law rather than Dutch law (a decision that endangers the lives of women whose abusers and killers are protected within their community), are now considering banning the veil. It’s worth noting that, for whatever reason, Continental Europe is having much more difficulty with multicultural issues regarding Muslims than the United States.

There are only about 50 women in all of the Netherlands who do cover up entirely - but soon they could be breaking the law.

Dutch MP Geert Wilders is the man who first suggested the idea of a ban. "It's a medieval symbol, a symbol against women," he says. "We don't want women to be ashamed to show who they are. Even if you have decided yourself to do that, you should not do it in Holland, because we want you to be integrated, assimilated into Dutch society. If people cannot see who you are, or see one inch of your body or your face, I believe this is not the way to integrate into our society."

Source:
BBC News Online, “Dutch MPs Decide on Burqa Ban.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4616664.stm

The Polygamy Problem: Russia

On Friday, Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, a Muslim, announced that men in Chechnya should be allowed to take up to four wives, as allowed by Islam, because so many men are killed in Chechen wars. He is supported by Russian parliamentary speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who alleges that there are 10 million more women in Russia than men, and would like to see polygamy applied across Russia.(1)

Islam's founder, the Prophet Mohammad, practiced polygamy, marrying between 9 and 12 times (his youngest bride was 6 when they married, but he waited until she was all of 10 and he was 54 to consummate the marriage). Oddly enough, the Koranic verses allowing polygamy were not even revealed to Mohammad until he had taken his third living wife (his first, Kadija, had already died). And, while normal Muslim men are restricted to just four wives, Mohammad was somehow exempted from this limit. The Koranic verse reads:

Marry of the women who seem good to you, two or three or four. And if ye fear that ye cannot do justice to so many, then marry only one.(2)

Even the Prophet Mohammad could not treat all of his wives equally, eventually favoring his youngest wife, A'isha. After great resentment built up among his other wives because he devoted so much of his time with A'isha, Mohammad told them that

God had given them a choice: either they could accept an ordinary life and be honorably divorced, or, if they "desired Allah and his Messenger and the abode hereafter, then Allah [would] prepare [them] a great reward. If they chose the latter, however, Allah required that they "stay at home and not display themselves as in the days of ignorance."(2)

Polygamy presents many problems in modern society. It is blatantlyy sexist; in almost all polygamous societies, only men are allowed to have multiple spouses. Phyllis Chesler, writing in her book The Death of Feminism of her own experiences living in Afghanistan as a bride to a Afghan man, describes the recurring problems of polygamy. Among them: predictably, a husband favoring one wife over his others, not being able to devote equal time or resources to all of his wives and their children, resentment building between children of disfavored wives and favored wives, and a husband abandoning a wife altogether in favor of another, leaving the abandoned wife little support, and in societies where women cannot leave the house without a chaperone or divorce without fear of retaliation, a severely limited social and non-existent sex/love life. (3)

Clearly, despite Prime Minister Kadyrov's presumably benign reasons for wanting to introduce polygamy in Chechnya (i.e., protection/support for widowed or otherwise unmarried women), the actual implementation of polygamy brings with it innumerable disadvantages to women. It is also important to consider the Prime Minister's history. Not surprisingly, Prime Minister Kadyrov has a reputation of human rights violations:

As the head of the Chechen Presidential Security Service, Kadyrov has often been accused of being brutal, ruthless and antidemocratic; according to newspapers, he was implicated in several instances of torture and murder. . . German human rights group the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has alleged that up to 70% of all murders, rapes, torture and kidnappings in Chechnya have been committed by Ramsan's 3,000-strong private army, the internal security force he heads known as the Kadyrovtsy.(4)

Sources:
(1) BBC News Online, "Polygamy Proposal for Chechen Men"”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4610396.stm

(2) Goodwin, Jan. Price of Honor: Muslim Women Life the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World. Plume: New York, 2003, pp. 36-39.

(3) Chesler, Phyllis. The Death of Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2005, pp. 79-100.

(4) Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, "Ramzan Kadyrov"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramzan_Kadyrov

The Past is Prologue: Japan and Sex Discrimination Under Title VII

Japan may soon have laws more closely mirroring Title VII, which protects, among other classes of people, women from discrimination in private employment. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a crucial tool for women in the United States. In fact, many would argue that it is the tool for women in the U.S. Title VII makes it

unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin...(1)

Of course, laws are really only useful if courts are willing to enforce them. In the United States, it took several decades for Title VII to cover not only sexual discrimination that treated women differently (e.g. employers that made it an explicit policy to hire only female secretaries but male executives), but also sexual discrimination that impacted women differently than men (i.e., an employer giving a test or setting a requirement, other than one necessary to perform the job, which disproportionately disqualifies women more than men).

Japan already has laws that prevent disparate treatment of women in the work force. However, unlike the United States, Japan's sexual discrimination laws do not apply to cases of disparate impact. This may soon change: In response to pressures from the United Nations, Japan is in the process of passing legislation covering disparate impact:

The labor ministry's initial draft proposal, issued in November, said such "indirect discrimination"--not just outright sexual discrimination--should be banned under the law. The revisions would bar employers from applying conditions that would hurt one group--men or women-- more than the other. Exceptions would be made when the nature of the job would justify the conditions. (2)

It would be flattering to believe that the U.S. was far ahead of its time when it included women in the classes protected by Title VII. It's a nice thought, but the truth is far less complimentary and actually somewhat ironic:

As the story goes, a congressman named Howard W. Smith introduced an amendment offering protection against sex discrimination in a last-minute effort to defeat the entire legislation, because he believed that none of his peers would vote for protection for women. When the act as amended passed ... in Congress, Congressman Smith ... became an unwitting hero of the women’s movement. (3)

Mona Harrington, in her book Women Lawyers, confirms this less than noble beginning for Title VII:

The overwhelming purpose of the law was to protect against race discrimination. Sex got in only as a kind of joke. The original bill, focused on race, was amended to include sex at the initiative of a southern opponent of the legislation who hoped, thereby, to trivialize and thus defeat it. (4)

Despite the origins of Title VII, I am certainly grateful that we have it in the U.S., and for the broad way that this statute has been interpreted. Japanese women (and men, too, I’m sure) will certainly benefit when similar legislation is passed there:

Shizuko Koedo, a member of the Working Women's Network, says the ban on indirect discrimination, already in place in many developed nations, has long been an "earnest wish" of all working women here. "The equal opportunity law has banned (outright) sexual discrimination, but indirect discrimination has been a loophole," says Koedo, whose group supports women suing their employers for discrimination. (2)

Sources:
(1) 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)
(2) Asahi.com, “Inequality at the Workplace” http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200601110122.html
(3) O’Connor, Sandra Day. The Majesty of the Law. Random House: New York, 2003, pp. 161-2.
(4) Harrington, Mona. Women Lawyers. Plume: New York, 1993, p. 106.

Wife Killers Getting Off Easy

Turning attention back to the United States, an article in the January 2006 Glamour (yes, a women's magazine that actually publishes something other than sex and makeup tips! For this I love Glamour), highlighted cases in which husbands kill their wives, claim "passion/provocation" and have their crimes reduced to manslaughter, which carries a lesser penalty than murder. An example of an actual case in 2005 demonstrates the consequences of such a plea:

Last January, a Texas man got 15 years for shooting and wounding his wife's lover--but received just four months for killing his wife. How is this possible? The crime-of-passion pleas stems from nineteenth-century laws that justified murder if a man found his wife in bed with another man. Today "judges and juries still accept the excuse that women provoke violent behavior in men," says Michael Brigner, a former family court judge in Dayton, Ohio.

While I have a great deal of respect for the U.S. legal system, it's clear that legal vestiges from a time when women were not even considered competent to serve on juries, let alone vote, have no place in our legal system today. Nancy Grace, quoted in the article, reminds us that "Women in other countries may be stoned to death for adultery, but women are being punished here, too. We need to stand up for them."

Source:
"When Wife Killers Get Off Easy." Glamour, January 2006, 80.

Zina Laws and the Problem of Rape

Lately, I've been focusing on issues in the Middle East. I do this because while there are no shortage of women's rights concerns in the United States and the West in general, the problems facing Middle Eastern women are particularly vexing.

While reading Jan Goodwin's informative and well written Price of Honor (a New York Times Notable Book), I learned about the zina laws in Pakistan. Using the ever helpul Google search page, I read more about these laws:

With the adoption of zina laws, for the first time in Pakistan's history, fornication became a crime against the state and along with adultery, made non-compoundable , non-bailable and punishable by death (HRW 1992:34). Moreover, the legal definition of zina blurs the line between adultery, fornication and rape. For the purpose of the ordinance, zina is defined as "sexual intercourse without being validly married." Zina-bil-jabr, rape, is defined as "sexual intercourse without being validly married" when it occurs without consent. Legally this means that if it cannot be proved that sex occurred without consent (rape), the sex itself becomes a crime against the state. Although to date no woman convicted under these laws has been stoned to death in Pakistan, zina laws allow for greater control of women within state sanctioned interpretations of the sacred books of Islam. (1)

The crux of the problem with zina laws is that officials will only declare that a woman has been raped after four men have come forward as witnesses to the rape; otherwise the officials deem the woman to have consented to "fornication". The fact is that for one man to have witnessed the rape, let alone four, and not have stopped it, he was probably a participant in the rape. Therefore, having four witnesses come forward is next to impossible. Yet there remains an even greater problem: the refusal for officials in society to even acknowledge that rape occurs in Pakistan. A prosecutor in the D.A.'s office in Lahore stated, "I don't believe in rape. Women's consent is always there. Our society does not allow rape." Another prosecutor confirmed this apparently pervasive sentiment: "Virtually all rape cases are fabricated. After all, if a man tries to rape a woman, she can slap him." (2)

She can slap him? I would love to see the effectiveness of a woman slapping a man to prevent rape.

It gets worse: under the zina laws, if a woman is found to be raped--or in Pakistan's overwhelming view--to have fornicated, she will be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years and have to pay a fine.

Sources:
(1) Zina Laws in Pakistan
http://zinalaws.tripod.com/ZinaLaws/

(2) Goodwin, Jane. Price of Honor. Plume: New York, 2003, p. 51.

The Death of Feminism: A Notable Book

Phyllis Chesler's latest book, The Death of Feminism, is a worthwhile read for any individual concerned that Second Wave feminists have been too silent about issues directly relating to the rights and interests of women all over the world (including the treatment of women in foreign countries, degrading genres of pornography, and women whose politics stray from the far left). While her politics are more conservative than most feminists writing today (a good thing, as it is important to have a fresh viewpoint), and the book could have used a finer eye during the stages of line and copyediting, it definitely makes a strong affront to Second Wave feminists who have "bargained away" some of women's issues (e.g., pornography, military issues, motherhood rights etc.) in favor of those deemed more important (e.g., women's sexual/reproductive freedoms).

Taliban Torches School for Educating Afghani Girls

After murdering a headmaster for allowing girls to attend his school in Afghanistan, the Taliban torched another school in the region. According to a report by the Associated Press,

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and they even oppose
government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides religion.

Source:
CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/01/08/afghan.school.burned.ap/

Taliban Executes Headmaster for Educating Girls

Before the invasion of Afghanistan and the defeat of the Taliban by U.S. forces, women in Afghanistan were forbidden to work outside of the home, girls were not allowed to be educated, and a woman's entire body had to be covered (including even her eyes, which were concealed behind a mesh fabric). She was not allowed to go outside of the home without a male chaperone.

After the U.S. invasion, progress has been made, but slowly. Girls are now allowed to be educated. But the Taliban resurgency is fighting to impede this progress. According to news reports on January 4 and 5, 2006, a headmaster in Afghanistan who permitted girls to attend school was murdered--stabbed first, then decapitated--as his wife and 8 children were forced to watch by the Taliban.

Source:
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1678199,00.html

Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2006/01/05/militants_behead_afghan_principal_for_educating_girls/